Last summer my parent’s home had a rodent infestation. “Just set mouse traps,” people told me. If only it were that easy. It turns out there are better and improved methods to bait and set traps to increase the odds of catching those gross, slippery critters.

I wish I had known these tips to increase our odds of catching mice in our standard Victor mouse traps. Initially, we baited our mouse traps with gobs of peanut butter, one of their favorite things ever; but the mice were clever. They somehow licked the peanut butter clean and never sprung the traps. If this is you too, try the following:

Bait underneath the trigger mechanism, not on top: Don’t use too much peanut butter. Put a small amount underneath the spring trigger to force the mouse to wrest the peanut butter free and possible spring the trap in the process.

Mix some cotton from a cotton swab with your bait: Tear off a bit of cotton from a cotton swab and roll it into your bait. This gets cotton stuck in the mouse’s teeth and makes it likely to trigger the trap.

Make the trap more “sensitive”: At around the 2:15 mark, the video shows you how to adjust the sensitivity of the trap so that it’ll snap in response to the slightest movement.